The agrochemical service roadmap under China’s 15th Five-Year Plan released! Fertilizer and pesticide utilization to increase up to above 50% and 45% respectively

A few days ago, China Chemical Enterprise Management Association issued the Guidance for Agrochemical Service in 15th Five-Year Plan Period (hereinafter referred to as the ″Guidance″), which clearly set forth four major goals and five tasks in association with development of agrochemical service in the next five years.

The Guidance suggests that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, agrochemical service shall be focused on crop unit yield increase and product quality improvement, aiming to provide a systematic support to the quality and efficiency improvement of agriculture, farmer’s production and income increase and acceleration of green transformation of agriculture. By 2030, the objective is to build a fully-covered, technologically-advanced, efficient, low-carbon and internationally-advanced modern agrochemical service system. To this end, the Guidance set forth four major goals for the 15th Five-Year Plan period:

1. Fertilizer and pesticide use reduced and efficiency increased: Coverage of testing soil for formulated fertilization to exceeds 95%; area of application of integration of water and fertilizer to reach proportion of above 30%; to strive to reduce loss of fertilizer by above 30%; pesticide use to decrease by above 15% over end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period; utilization rate of fertilizer and pesticide to increase up to above 50% and 45% respectively; and quality of cultivated land to increase by 0.5 level in average. 

   
   

2. Green intelligent service system built: Coverage of UAV precision spraying shall exceed 60% while intelligent irrigation be widely applied; digital means to be used to reduce labor cost by above 30% and increase operation efficiency by 50%; manure fertilizer utilization to reach 80%; area of application of ″fertilizer + organic matter + microorganism″ (3 in 1) to account for 40%; market share of green products such as novel microbial fertilizer and biological pesticide to reach above 30%.

   
   

3. Professional service capacity significantly increased: To cultivate a number of national and provincial agrochemical service providers as well as reinforcement of 100 national agrochemical service centers to play a leading role; vocational skill training to cover 100% agrochemical technicians while more than 10,000 high-level experts being trained; promotion and application of intelligent fertilization and pesticide application equipment to reach above 70%.

   
   

4. Digital service system fully upgraded. The agricultural big data platform to be fully built, which is integrated with early warning of pests and diseases, soil moisture status and meteorological data so as to accurately match supply and demand; an integrated delegation of ″sowing, management, harvesting and marketing″ shall cover major crops, with delegated service area accounting for above 40%.

In order to achieve the above goals, the Guidance has designated five key tasks.

1. Fertilizer and pesticide use reduction and efficiency increase: To promote nation-wide implementation of testing soil for formulated fertilization and application of integration of water and fertilizer, and build 100 demonstrative counties and 2,000 intelligent fertilizer distribution stations in major grain-producing regions; to establish unified regional prevention and control service teams; to set up full-chain pesticide packaging & agricultural membrane recycling and disposal systems; to build 50 integrated ″smart farmland + green agrochemical″ demonstration zones.

   
   

2. Promotion of upgrading of green intelligent service system: To build national agrochemical service-oriented digital support platforms and promote application of agricultural robots and intelligent sensors in demonstration zones; to support research and development of high-end liquid fertilizer, sustained/slow-release fertilizer, biostimulant and targeted biopesticide, with establishment of green product certification systems; to set up 100 nation-wide circular agriculture demonstration counties to promote the planting-breeding combined ecological farming models; to establish a mechanism of subsidy for promotion of green technologies.

   
   

3. Building a modern professional service system: To foster national backbone enterprises, ″specialized, refined and novel small and medium-sized enterprises″ while strengthening the construction of 100 national agrochemical service centers; to establish an agrochemical service expert database which will enroll 10,000 industry experts; to formulate an intelligent fertilization and pesticide application equipment catalogue for promotion, and will support enterprises to develop miniaturized equipment fit to small farmers.

   
   

4. Accelerated development of high-quality liquid fertilizer industry: To support enterprises to build liquid fertilizer R&D centers, research of adjuvants to improve the solubility of conventional fertilizers; to expand application of liquid fertilizers in prime field crop producing regions, striving to increase the proportion of field crop application to 25%; to build 1,000 liquid fertilizer distribution centers across the country; to formulate a series of standards for production, application and testing of liquid fertilizers, with establishment of an evaluation system for the effectiveness of liquid fertilizers.

   
   

5. Creation of an all-region digital service system: To build national agrochemical service big data platforms; to promote integrated delegation service based on ″sowing, management, harvesting and marketing″; to launch a menu operation interface-based delegation service in favor of small farmers, which shall account for more than 40% of delegated service.